Obama Campaign: 'Why The Hell Did Romney Pick This Guy?'

This evening, the Obama campaign sent out its most desperate fundraising email yet. Following in the footsteps of their other emails cursing out Americans (e.g. “Let’s win the damn election“), and tweets deriding Obamacare opponents as “motherf***ers,” now the Obama campaign is spluttering mad over the Paul Ryan pick by the Romney campaign. Here’s their email, titled “What’s behind the Paul Ryan pick?”:

Friend —

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Congressman Paul Ryan is the poster boy for the extreme Republican leadership in a Congress whose overall approval rating is 12 percent. His plan to dismantle Medicare is deeply unpopular with the general public, and especially undecided voters.

You might be wondering why the hell Romney picked this guy. But this is a strategic pick that carries real danger for us.

Here’s the calculation: Mitt Romney doesn’t need or expect Paul Ryan to convince even one undecided voter to cast their ballot for him. That’s not what he’s on the ticket for. He’s there to reassure and inspire ultraconservative ideologues and corporate interests that they will have one of their own a heartbeat from the presidency.

That means tens or even hundreds of millions more dollars for the Romney campaign and the array of outside groups supporting him – and if current trends hold, more than 90 percent of that money will be spent on TV ads — lying, distorting and trashing Barack Obama. Those ads will have more impact on undecided voters than anything Paul Ryan himself does or says.

Mitt Romney is convinced that picking Paul Ryan is a great investment for him. And his campaign is already touting the pledges and donations they’ve received as a result, with fundraising events planned for this week.

We’re already being outraised, and we can’t afford to fall further behind. Our records show that you’re still waiting to make your first online donation — now is the time.

Please donate $5 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Romney-Ryan

More soon.

Messina

Jim Messina

Campaign Manager

Obama for America

This is the language of absolute panic. “Why the hell” would Romney pick Ryan? Perhaps because Ryan is the intellectual leader of the fiscally-conscious conservative movement. Maybe because Ryan has stood up to the president face-to-face, and dismantled his entire Obamacare agenda within a six-minute speech. Or maybe it’s that he’s from a swing state, is highly articulate, brings Tea Party credibility, wins a huge percentage of his district’s vote every single election cycle, and will run rings around Joe Biden. There is not a sane political analyst in America who wonders “why the hell” Romney picked Ryan.

But according to the Obama campaign, the same man that Obama once called “absolutely sincere about wanting to reduce the deficit” and gave “credit for at least being willing to put to there some very tough choices” is an unthinkably awful pick. Why? He’s “the poster boy for the extreme Republican leadership in a Congress whose overall approval rating is 12 percent” – even though Ryan’s budget has passed the House and received over 40 votes in the Senate, while Obama’s budget has yet to receive a single yay vote. Also, Ryan is a bad pick according to Obama because “his plan to dismantle Medicare is deeply unpopular with the general public” – although it’s Obamacare that rips $700 billion out of Medicare already.

The Obama campaign knows this is bull. They’re clearly panicked. So what’s their conspiratorial reason why people should believe Romney picked Ryan? Prepare the black helicopters: “he’s there to reassure and inspire ultraconservative ideologues and corporate interests that they will have one of their own a heartbeat from the presidency.”

This is laughable. Is there any Republican Romney could have picked that the Democrats wouldn’t have claimed this about? They’re posing this campaign as a choice between blue collar and upper crust – and Ryan destroys that campaign strategy. But they’re ramming ahead anyway – now Ryan is some sort of corporate shill, designed to please the Koch brothers.

The Obama campaign must be severely hard up for cash. And as they watch the runaway enthusiasm for Ryan on the conservative side of the aisle – and as they prepare for Ryan’s impact in blue collar swing states – they’re struggling for an answer. You might say they simply don’t know what the hell to do.